Who is John?

[Omniscient]

Dear John letters…so who is this poor bastard?

[aseymayo]

I don’t know, but he spends a lot of time in the bathroom.

[Omniscient]

Hey, quit that! Next thing you know manny will be getting antsy.

Seriously, where did this saying come from and is it refering to some famous pathetic John?

[Beruang]

I had always assumed that, being one of the most common names, it was also one of the most anonymous: John Smith, John Doe, hooker’s clients using the nearly-untraceable name…

[Fiver]

Well, alls I know is I once dated a tractor saleswoman, until she sent me a John Deere letter.

[Omniscient]

You guys are all hilarious.

Does John deserve no respect?

[gigi]

I always thought it was because she was so through with the guy that she forgot his first name and just used the common one.

[kiwizukini]

not now john there’s somthing going on

[zut]

C’mon guys; quit it with the making of the funnies. It’s a darn good question.

This site has the following information contained within a discussion of the etymology of the phrase “that’s all she wrote”:

The standard theory about “That’s all she wrote” is that it arose during World War II and refers to the “Dear John letters” received by many servicemen from their sweethearts back home bluntly announcing the end of their relationships. Such letters were so common during the war that “That’s all she wrote” may have originally been the punch line to a joke: a GI (in some versions, not even named John) receives a letter containing only the salutation “Dear John,” with the “It’s over” part left unwritten and implicit. When questioned by his buddies about the rest of the letter’s contents, he replies, “That’s all she wrote.”

So, perhaps the use of “Dear John” to describe the letter came from the same WWII joke? This makes sense, since the phrase “Dear John” was all the letter contained. As a bit of corroborating circumstantial evidence, my dictionary gives 1941-1944 as the date of origin of the phrase. Not very conclusive, but plausible.

[jamesglewisf]

Thanks for the link to The Word Detective. That is a really cool site. My wife and I are always trying to figure out the etymology of words.

[bibliophage]

*Originally posted by zut *
So, perhaps the use of “Dear John” to describe the letter came from the same WWII joke

I have heard a joke about a “Dear John” letter, but I doubt it’s the same one. A woman named Mary mails a “Dear John” letter to her boyfried fighting in the Pacific, asking him to return her picture. He gathers up as many pictures of pretty girls that he can find and sends them all to her along with this note: “Dear Mary, I’m afraid I can’t remember which one is you. Take yours and return the rest. Love, John”.